1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system and method for enabling receiving, servicing, decision-making on, maintaining and administrating service charge adjustments over an automated platform, and more particularly, to a system and method for providing a fully automated process for receiving a request for a service charge adjustment by a customer, and processing the request within a financial institution prior to delivering a decision on whether to approve the request in a totally paperless environment. Important components of the system and method include an integrated platform that supports customer requests for service charge adjustments; links to other account systems to validate customer fees, and profitability and workflow/decision-making software. The term integrated platform refers to the capability of the present invention to provide customers and customer service representatives with the opportunity to process customer requests through a single system architecture, automatically, and in a paperless environment.
2. Related Art
Service charge adjustment systems, which utilize electronic transmission of customer account data and adjustments to accounts on-line have been developed. In these systems, customers provide account holder and fee data which is sufficient to determine the validity of a service charge to an account record and provide a card for cash funding. Customers generally are required to provide sufficient detail of the transaction that caused the fee in the form of a receipt, statement, and/or other circumstantial information before the charge can be reviewed and a determination made to approve or deny the request for adjustment.
Customer information system and/or processes have also been developed to allow non-electronic requests to be forwarded to a financial institution or other entity by mail, facsimile or other means. The customer provides the same account holder data as required above including the circumstances surrounding the charge in question, and forwards the information to the entity for processing and decision. The financial institution or other entity subsequently reviews the information and provides the customer with a response to the request in the form of a credit notice or reason for denying the request.
Customer access websites are currently under development and are available on the Internet. These systems typically require the customer to provide the same account information as required above, and generally involve a back-office area that reviews and researches the request. Usually the back-office receives the request and some form of research of the information prior to a decision to refund the fee or deny the request.
The process steps and/or systems to be provided in the present invention may be individually available through other companies and/or financial entities. However, there is no known integrated, seamless automated system in existence that can support an end-to-end “one and done” process on a single platform. Further, no financial institution or other entity is able to offer the ability for reviewing and processing customer requests across multiple lines of business, as in the present invention, or to support a fully automated, paperless process for the receiving, researching, decision-making and monitoring of such customer requests